


It's Been So Long Since I Could Tell

by lmeow



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: F/F, First Dates, Fluff, M/M, also they are both embarrassing, and whizzer just wants a real date for once, disaster gay consults his lesbian friends because they're better at this than him, marvin just doesn't want to mess it up again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23542480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmeow/pseuds/lmeow
Summary: Whizzer takes one look at Marvin and he suddenly feels regret wash over him. "No, Marvin. I refuse to go on this date with you if you seriously think you can survive without me wanting to murder you."Marvin blinks, clueless and innocent, and it makes Whizzer scrunch his face. "What's wrong?""What's wrong?" Whizzer scoffs and gestures to Marvin entirely. "I don't want to be seen in public with you.""...Whizzer, you are the most openly gay man I kno—""Ohmygod— I am talking about your outfit, Marv!"
Relationships: Dr. Charlotte/Cordelia (Falsettos), Whizzer Brown/Marvin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 54





	It's Been So Long Since I Could Tell

**Author's Note:**

> hey, this is my first time posting a fic for falsettos and it is literally 2020, i know. cut me some slack, okay? i delayed the pain and now i can't get out of here. 
> 
> thank you, sowmz, for being my beta reader for this! ilysm!

“When I said it’s been so long since I could tell,” Marvin starts, sinking further into his seat, face buried in his hands as to better hide his shame that Charlotte could still very much see. “I _literally_ meant it.”

Cordelia, who was busy looking through some recipes from a paperback cookbook that Charlotte managed to get on the way home from work, perks up with a weird look. “Are you saying you’ve become straight, Marv? _Gross._ ”

Marvin peeks through his fingers, a glare slipping out that only makes Cordelia stick her tongue out at him while Charlotte chuckles at them both. Cordelia was being a bit of an ass for a reason; one that Charlotte actually approves of.

You see, living next door to Marvin obviously had its cons. One of them was the fact he was _just_ next door. This meant _Marvin_ (of all people) could come over _whenever_ he wanted— completely uninvited and without any sort of warning beforehand. This, unfortunately, included the ungodly hours past midnight. Because of this, Charlotte couldn’t seem to find what possessed her when she agreed to befriend Marvin all those years ago. And Cordelia still often asks her to go look for it to no avail.

What does this have to do with her wife being more annoyed than she usually is, you ask? Well, before Marvin was even a problem to begin with this evening, Charlotte had just come home from work and Cordelia wanted to somehow lessen her stress a bit. A few minutes worth of a massage surprisingly turned around to a full make out session on the couch, the pleasurable noises escaping Cordelia’s lips being loud enough to drown out the sound of the front door. Eventually, both women had to stop once they heard a slightly distant familiar voice say, “ _If you guys are having sex, I can just come back after._ ”

“If we were doing that, we would have never let you come back here.” Charlotte calmly explains, now removing her earrings to get rid of _some_ deadweights hanging off of her... even if she couldn’t get rid of Marvin. 

He huffs in retaliation, the sound coming off a bit irritated. It makes Cordelia knit her brows together and pout. “Seriously? Not even for an emergency like this one?”

“Becoming straight is quite the downfall,” Charlotte says, only for Cordelia to continue it with, “But that means you’d get banned from coming over here ever again which is _totally_ fine by me.” 

"I'm not suddenly straight!" Marvin bit out. He knew they were only teasing, and he did sort of start it, but that hit a little too close to home for him, considering he'd try to force himself to be straight for most of his life. He also knew that they were just joking about banning him from their house forever, but his emotions were a little haywire right now and it still stung a bit. "What about Trina, huh? You let her come over and she's straight."

“A straight _woman,_ Marvin. _Women_ are always welcomed here.” Marvin rolls his eyes the moment Charlotte says that, earning her an obnoxious snort from Cordelia and a high-five to boot. She would have added that the joke was worth it for that reaction, but it really wasn’t a joke at all.

“Okay, whatever,” Marvin mumbles, slouching forward and resting his elbows on his thighs as he let his clasped hands hang between his knees. “but I’m still serious about what I said earlier.” 

“What do you even mean by that? _‘It’s been so long since I could tell.’_ ” Charlotte asks, doing air quotes with her fingers as she repeats his statement with the same elderly voice he did from the little league game last weekend. It has been four days since then and Marvin has been all over the place. Just a week ago, he was nothing but _bar mitzvah_ _this_ and _what-the-hell-did-I-just-put-in-my-mouth? that_. However, this week seems to have a different Marvin, and anyone could give a good guess as to why.

Marvin hangs his head, suddenly silent and embarrassed as he fiddled with his fingers when anxiety begins to form bubbles within him. It wasn’t telling his two closest friends about this sort of thing that made him anxious— it was talking about _him_ that did. It’s like the butterflies from the first time they met.

“...Nobody made me feel the way that he did, okay?” Marvin finally says, avoiding as much eye contact as possible. “A few dates here and there and not a single one felt like something… something worth holding onto, you know? It almost made me feel like…” He trails off at the end there, face contorting into one of sheer confusion and loss of words. 

“—like you couldn’t tell if you were still into men.” Cordelia suddenly mutters, making Marvin lift up his head as he glanced over to her sitting on the armchair by his left. Charlotte was seated beside Marvin on the couch and she can’t help but smile at Cordelia piecing it together before anyone else. Knowledge for internal medicine can’t compete with Cordelia’s connections with the heart after all. _God, she’s fucking amazing._

“...Yeah. It was like I could only be into one man,” Marvin replies after a while, tone soft to match his expression before it slowly shifts to a frustrated one. “ _And I fucking blew it with him because I’m such an arrogant dick!_ ” 

Charlotte and Cordelia watch as Marvin aggressively slumps back again and grabs a couch pillow to slam it onto his face, not wanting the world to see what a shitty asshole looks like. There’s a prolonged yet muffled groan that follows and Cordelia can’t help but suppress a giggle while her doctor facepalms. 

“It’s been so long since I could tell but when I saw him that day—” The pillow comes off and he brings it down to his lap, eyes fixated on the ceiling with some sort of helpless and lovesick gaze that he shakes his head to in disbelief. “— _Jesus,_ I could tell. I could really tell that I was _still_ super duper gay.”

As though all of her annoyance had vanished upon those words, Cordelia makes a soft noise of sympathy and stands up, forcibly pushing Marvin closer to Charlotte so she can sit together with them. Now Marvin was sandwiched by his two lesbian friends and he can’t help but smile a bit at the thought. Admittedly, the scenario is pretty funny; like a sitcom kinda funny.

“So your emergency is the fact you’re being a disaster gay over your ex, right?” Cordelia asks, making Charlotte curiously lean forward in her spot so she can face Marvin a bit better. 

“Didn’t you guys make out under the bleachers after the game though?” Charlotte’s very blunt question makes Marvin sit up properly all of a sudden, eyes wide and Adam's apple bobbing nervously. The reaction makes Cordelia laugh behind her hand and Charlotte has this shit-eating grin that reads, _‘Yeah, I saw it.’_

How did it happen? Basically, there was this whole celebratory dinner after the game but before they all left to get to it, Whizzer requested Marvin to stay a while so they could “talk.” Patience wore thin easily after fifteen minutes as Jason began complaining about Whizzer and his dad ruining everything. Charlotte, not wanting to upset the kid further, ended up volunteering to go and get them. Long story short: they didn’t notice her when she caught them in the act and nor did she try to make her presence known. Dinner happened five minutes later after Charlotte returned saying, _“their emotional moment is almost done, don’t worry.”_

Marvin is just glad nobody knew about that besides these two. He was already openly flirting with Whizzer the entire game so the make out session afterwards would have been used as additional bullying material. Of course, the lesbians were most definitely going to bully him endlessly about this anyway, but somehow it was better coming from them than Trina and Mendel.

“He texted me. Like an hour ago.” Marvin says immediately, not wanting to talk about that make-out session any longer. The room suddenly feels hot though and his face was gaining a red hue that he hopes no one will point out. Before any of the two can ask for clarification, he fishes out his phone from the pocket of his red hoodie and opens up the messages he and Whizzer have been sending to each other.

“Just ignore the, uh, ones above that.” He instructs, face flushing deeper as he hands Charlotte his phone, making Cordelia push him down so he folded against his lap and had somewhere to perch herself on. It was just to get a better look at the messages but if it pissed him off, Cordelia considers that a win. He swore he felt his back give out when it happened too so maybe she was successful in that. 

The messages are as followed: 

_Whizzer_

**i actually stole one of ur ugly shirts when u kicked me out**

_Marvin_

**Wait. Seriously? Wouldn’t you be rather**

**caught dead than wearing my clothes?**

_Whizzer_

**duh. that’s why i wear it when i’m alone**

**with nothing else underneath too x**

_Marvin_

**oh**

_Whizzer_

**HA made you stop typing like an old**

**english professor for once. whizzer wins!**

_Marvin_

**You’re a pain in the ass.**

_Whizzer_

**oh shut up we both know i receive the pain in the ass**

**hey, marv**

_Marvin_

**Yeah?**

_Whizzer_

**you free tomorrow??**

_Marvin_

**Don’t have work so, yeah, I think so.**

**Why?**

_Whizzer_

**wanna go out with me then??**

**like on a proper date**

  
  


Charlotte blinks a couple of times as she blankly stares at the phone’s screen while Cordelia makes a face that seemed more disgusted than confused. Cordelia tries to scroll down further after the last text, making sure she wasn’t missing anything else before she proceeds to get off Marvin’s back. 

“That’s it?” She asks, confusion taking over as Marvin pops his back once he is sitting up again. 

Before he could reply, Charlotte immediately butts in. “You literally made us look through your texts when you could have just told us he asked you out?”

Silence is the answer that Charlotte receives at first before Marvin, with a really stupid voice, replies with, “...Well, it sounds stupid when you say it like that.” _She wants to punch him so fucking bad._

Cordelia thankfully stops any possibility of that happening as she speaks up again, a hand coming to hold his shoulder in a sympathetic manner. “You haven’t even replied to him, honey.” 

The soft gesture makes him ease a bit, shoulders drooping as he sighs. “Yeah, it’s been an hour—”

And then suddenly the hand on his shoulder is no longer sympathetic. _“An hour?!_ ” Cordelia exclaims, clutching tightly onto Marvin’s shoulder enough to make him yelp. For someone as lovely as her, you wouldn’t expect the life-threatening grip. “You left him on read for an _hour?!”_

“Look— I panicked, okay?! I didn’t want to fuck things up again just because I said the wrong thing!” 

“I feel sorry for Whizzer. I really do.” Charlotte softly states, like a mother about her son who came home with a broken nose. She then turns over to Marvin, a deadpan stare on her face as she hands him back his phone, obviously not amused in the slightest by these turn of events. It made Marvin feel like a total idiot... as he rightfully should. “To think he really has to put up with _this_ crap.” 

He winces some before glancing back down at his phone in an attempt to find some sliver of dignity left. “Oh, c’mon! You saw the first few texts, right?” He points at one text that had the word _‘boner’_ in it. “See? I’m not—”

It is taking so much power within Charlotte right now to not slap Marvin’s phone out of his hand. “Yes, and all we want to do is unsee the first few texts. Now do you want our help or not?”

Marvin does want their help. That is why he came here in the first place despite it being 11:30 in the night. For so long, Marvin always had this belief that if he did something on his own, then it would make him more of a man than he thought he was. It also gave him a sense of control; like if he held onto the reins and drove the situation the way he wanted it to, then _everything would be alright_ . Everything will go according to _his_ plan because his plan _never_ fails. 

Then suddenly it did. He had all the control in the world but used it to make the wrong decisions; selfish and shitty decisions that drove everything and everyone _away_ instead. When it came to plans that weren’t his own, it scared him because he didn’t know how it goes or how it would end. 

After a bit of silence, as though he had any better options to choose from, Marvin looks at Charlotte and Cordelia with a serious look in his eyes before saying, “... _Please_.” 

Any plan was better than his and it took almost losing everything to realize that.

  
  



End file.
